Position: South 08*04'660 East 122*50'718
Yesterday we had a beautiful day sail (and some motoring) from Lembata to this anchorage at Tanjung Gedong on the Eastern side of Flores Island...roughly fourty miles. Arriving around 4pm in a well protected but extremely deep bay, we had to drop the anchor about 20 feet from the beach as the bottom slopes up rather sharply - one minute we were in 250ft the next 40. Our Norwegian friends on s/v Helen Kate and s/v Silene we're already anchored and Gunnar was nice enough to snorkel in front of the boat to find a sandy spot to drop our anchor in. The bay is extremely beautiful with a rocky beach covered in palm trees, crystal clear water and a large village in the hills.
Today we went ashore to visit the village and were shown around by a lady who spoke some English and was really excited to practice it with us. She invited us into her house for Flores Coffee (very strong and very sweet) and introduced us to her family. The village itself is very basic with small wooden houses and pigs and chickens running around everywhere. The population here are mostly Catholic with some Muslim and they were really proud of the village church. It was obvious that they rarely have any tourists, other than the odd cruiser dropping in, as we had a large number of children and adults following us where ever we went...they're so friendly!
Back on the beach a group of older guys were carving out wooden canoes and they were really happy to show us their handy work. The rest of the day we spent snorkelling and relaxing on the boat with a constant influx of visiting children in canoes moving from one boat to another to try and see what was going on in these strange crafts. This evening we went ashore to build a fire ('api' in indonsian) on the beach and cook our famous 'bread on a stick' while watching the sunset. A local guy came to join us and we gave him some bread and sausages to try, he seemed to like it but turned down Jimmy's offer of some wine as he said it might make him Crazy - very honest!!
Tomorrow we plan to head further west in search of some dive sites but not sure where yet, the weather looks good but there's been no wind so it may be a day of motoring or flying the spinaker.
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